Four “Frenchmen” have been sentenced to up to seven years in prison for attempting to travel abroad to wage jihad. Meanwhile, German authorities are becoming increasingly concerned about the recruitment of young “Germans” for jihad.
In other news, cell phones for some of the passengers on the missing Malaysian jetliner are still active and apparently ring when dialed by their relatives. Given that the oil slicks in the South China Sea have been ruled out as having originated with Flight 370, it is now thought that the plane may have been hijacked and has landed in some unknown location.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, Srdja Trifkovic, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
20 Facts About the Great U.S. Retail Apocalypse That Will Blow Your Mind
If the U.S. economy is getting better, then why are major retail chains closing thousands of stores? If we truly are in an “economic recovery”, then why do sales figures continue to go down for large retailers all over the country? Without a doubt, the rise of Internet retailing giants such as Amazon.com have had a huge impact.
Today, there are millions of Americans that actually prefer to shop online. Personally, when I published my novel I made it solely available on Amazon. But Internet shopping alone does not account for the great retail apocalypse that we are witnessing. In fact, some retail experts estimate that the Internet has accounted for only about 20 percent of the decline that we are seeing. Most of the rest of it can be accounted for by the slow, steady death of the middle class U.S. consumer. Median household income has declined for five years in a row, but all of our bills just keep going up. That means that the amount of disposable income that average Americans have continues to shrink, and that is really bad news for retailers.
And sadly, this is just the beginning. Retail experts are projecting that the pace of store closings will actually accelerate over the course of the next decade.
So as you read this list below, please take note that things will soon get even worse.
The following are 20 facts about the great U.S. retail apocalypse that will blow your mind…
#1 As you read this article, approximately a billion square feet of retail space is sitting vacant in the United States.
[Comment: Banksters planned destruction of the middle class (world wide) is working.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Game Changer: It Will be Shocking for the Average American: “Your Cost of Living Will Quadruple”
In recent months working Americans have seen their health care costs triple. But this is just the beginning. When America’s debt problems come to a head the subsidies will be removed, and that will lead to cost of living increases that will leave those who never saw it coming in a state of confusion and bewilderment with no way out.
Marin Katusa of Casey Research, who has met with business and political leaders in over one hundred countries and is one of the most successful contrarian investment analysts out there, has some thoughts on the matter.
“It will be shocking for the average American… if the petro dollar dies and the U.S. loses its reserve currency status in the world there will be no middle class.
“The middle class and the low class… wow… what a game changer. Your cost of living will quadruple.“
In the following must-watch interview with the Sound Money Campaign, Marin outlines the reasons for why our cost of living is going through the roof, the effects of geo-politics on our future, and ways to insulate yourself from what’s coming.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Camusso Says Premier ‘Out of Touch’ With Economic Suffering
‘Working class’ to hold Renzi accountable, says union boss
(ANSA) — Bari, March 10 — The head of Italy’s largest labor confederation chided the premier on Monday for being “out of touch” with human suffering in the country amid the economic crisis. “Matteo Renzi seems out of touch with the fact that there is a part of the country that has paid a very high price during this crisis,” said GCIL chief Susanna Camusso. “Renzi needs to understand that that part of the country is the working class and retirees, who are watching his numerous proclamations”. Despite heading the center-left Democratic Party (PD), Matteo Renzi is seen to represent the more moderate wing of his party that is less friendly to unions. Camusso has called on Renzi to pay close attention to the union since his appointment as premier last month. Speaking to popular Italian television host Fabio Fazio on Sunday, Renzi said his government would “listen to everyone,” including the unions and powerful industrial confederation Confindustria. “But we’ll be the ones to decide,” he added. “We know what there is to do, and we’ll do it with citizens in mind. He then asked both the unions and industrialists, “what have you achieved in the past 20 years?” referring to the country’s economy that had been slowing even before the global economic downturn.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Industrial Production Dangerously Weak, Says Economist
Italy not on pace for ‘fast recovery’, says research group
(See related) (ANSA) — Bologna, March 10 — With Italy’s industrial production rate stalled at only about 1.4% per year, it will be 2016 before the economy recovers to levels last seen in 2011, an economist with research firm Nomisma said Monday.
Sergio De Nardis spoke after national statistics agency Istat said that industrial production grew by 1% in January compared with the same time one year earlier — the highest month on month rise since August 2011.
“At these growth rates, only in 2016 will there be levels of industrial activity equal to 2011”, said De Nardis. “This is not a fast recovery, given the depths from which we must climb,” he said.
The increase recorded in January only offsets an unexpected decline in December.
Making matters worse, monthly industrial production is averaging a growth rate of just 0.3%.
That means the annual increase this year will only be about 2.5% compared with 2013 and about 15% below 2007 levels.
Still, said De Nardis, the picture is not entirely bleak.
“The data confirms we are on a path of recovery, driven by foreign demand,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Real-Estate Market Down 9.2% in 2013, Below 1985 Levels
Home prices plunge 10.7%
(ANSA) — Rome, March 10 — The residential real-estate market in Italy plunged 9.2% in 2013 on the previous year, below levels recorded in 1985, according to data released on Monday by the real-estate observatory of the Italian revenue agency.
The observatory said 403,000 sales were recorded last year and real-estate prices dropped 10.7% to 66.8 billion euros.
Overall, sales in all categories of real property dropped 8.9% in 2013, down by almost 88,000 sales on 2012, which had registered a record 24.8% decrease.
However, data showed that sales slightly picked up in the last quarter, which registered a less significant 7.5% drop.
Among different categories, residential property sales recorded a 9.2% decrease, commercial properties a 7.3% drop and industrial properties a 7.7% decrease.
The credit crunch in 2013, one of the worst years for businesses in Italy since the 2008 global financial crisis, led to a 7.7% drop in residential property bought with a mortgage.
Mortgages were worth 17.5 billion euros last year, down 10.6% from 2012.
Italy’s longest postwar recession officially ended with flat growth in the third quarter of last year and a 0.1% rise in the last quarter but unemployment is still running at a record high and businesses and households are struggling to recover.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Drop in Bank Loans to Firms and Households Slows
Fall of 3.5% in January, compared to 3.7% in December
(ANSA) — Rome, March 10 — The number of loans Italian banks granted households and businesses fell again in January, but the rate of the decline slowed, the Bank of Italy said Monday.
The central bank said loans to families and firms dropped 3.5% in January with respect to the same month in 2013, compared to a 3.7% year-on-year fall in December.
Italy emerged from its longest postwar recession in the second half of last year, but the recovery is weak and part of the reason for this is that families and businesses are having trouble obtaining credit, economists say.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
President Obama told Bill O’Reilly of Fox News that there is not even a “smidgeon” of evidence to support the existence of an IRS scandal whereby IRS unlawfully discriminated against Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status. It looks like Obama is deserving of another four Pinnochios from the Washington Post.
Email correspondence from former IRS Tax Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner contradict the President’s assertion and raise new questions concerning why the President would leap to a conclusion of innocence in the presence of so much evidence suggesting guilt.
Congressman Darrell Issa and other leading House Republicans on the Government Reform and Oversight Committee believe they now know the motive behind the targeting of Tea Party and conservative non-profits by the IRS Tax Exempt Organizations Division: an attempt to undermine the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That 5 to 4 decision held restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations, associations, and labor unions unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The President and leading Democrats condemned the decision, viewing it as a major threat to election prospects for Democrats.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Adam Lanza’s Dad Wishes Son Had Never Been Born, Says ‘You Can’t Get Any More Evil’
The father of Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza said in his first interview about the massacre that what his son did couldn’t “get any more evil” and he wishes his son hadn’t been born.
In his most extensive comments since the shooting, Peter Lanza described his struggle to comprehend the actions of his son, who killed his mother then gunned down 20 children and six educators at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in December 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi: Joe diGenova Slams House Intelligence Chief Rogers
This morning on WMAL former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova here expressed outrage over what he called the “disgraceful” conduct of House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers here on the Benghazi investigation. Rogers, he said, has played an “obstructionist” role in blocking any serious accounting of events.
Listen to diGenova here—
Judicial Watch in their January 6 post here “Benghazi victims’ families, conservative leaders demand Boehner create Select Committee” includes the full text of a letter from these families and leaders to Speaker John Boehner.
The signers declared — …
[As Blue Ridge Forum says: what hasn’t been done on Benghazi is disgraceful.]
| [Return to headlines] |
California Police Chief: Let’s Issue CHLS to Citizens
“There are a lot of gang members running around the Coachella Valley who are armed, and there are many law-abiding citizens that are concerned for their safety,” Bressler said.
“I think it’s time for us to issue concealed weapons licenses to the law-abiding people of this city,” he said. “I believe this will deter crime and help people feel safer.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Democrat Climate Caucus Reveals Its Stupidity
The nation seems to be passing through a period in which too many U.S. Senators have been elected without so much as a high school level understanding of what drives the Earth’s climate and it isn’t the 0.038% of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.
On Monday, March 10, some twenty of them will stay up overnight on the Senate floor, according to The Hill, “to bring attention to the impacts of climate change.” You don’t get more idiotic than that. Climate, measured in decades and centuries, is always in a state of change. Meanwhile, the weather anywhere in the nation, determined by the changing seasons and responsive only to short-range forecasts, has turned colder thanks to a cooling cycle that is now into its 17th year.
Giving speeches all night in the Senate will not change that, but Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has partnered with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to announce a new “climate change caucus” when you can ask any of the million unemployed Americans what the Senate’s real priority should be.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Democrats Plan All-Night Talkathon on “Global Warming”
Just don’t call it a filibuster.
A majority of Senate Democrats on Monday will launch an overnight “talkathon” until approximately 9:00 a.m. Tuesday to draw attention to climate change.
The overnight effort, organized by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, is part of the recently launched Senate Climate Action Task Force headed by Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Federal Prosecutors Investigating Chairman of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have subpoenaed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for records related to potential conflicts of interest involving its chairman, David Samson, a prominent New Jersey lawyer and close political ally of Gov. Chris Christie, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The business dealings of Mr. Samson and his law firm, Wolff & Samson, have come under intense scrutiny as a result of the politically charged closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in September and the burgeoning scandal that ensued. The lane closings are the subject of a separate inquiry by federal prosecutors in New Jersey, who are examining the roles of several current and former aides and allies of Mr. Christie.
Neither of the federal prosecutor’s offices would comment on the subpoena nor its possible connection to the bridge inquiry. But an examination of possible conflicts of interest involving Mr. Samson would appear to represent a significant widening of the scandal.
| [Return to headlines] |
Four Important Bills Languishing in Congress
Amid all the meaningless dither and political theater for TV over CPAC polls regarding the 2016 presidential election, nary a sound is heard about four very important bills millions of Americans should be shouting to get passed. Of course, there’s the unlawfully seated U.S. Senate headed up by a certifiable lunatic, Dirty Harry Reid, who no doubt will fight against them. Since the Oval office is empty, currently occupied by an impostor, there’s no legitimate president to sign any of them into law should they get passed.
However, we the people should still be demanding a floor vote in the House to bring them to the forefront of ignorant voters so they can, hopefully, begin to understand you can’t solve a problem unless you know when and how it came about…
H.R. 156: To provide for the withdrawal of the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement
H.R. 75: American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2013 — To end membership of the United States in the United Nations.
H.R.129 — Latest Title: Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2013. Restore Glass-Stegall — House Committee on Financial Services.
H.R.3894 — Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act to do away with income taxes on social security.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
GOP: Boycott the Mainstream Media
In 1981, S. Robert Lichter, then with George Washington University, and Stanley Rothman of Smith College, released a survey revealing that the political leanings of 240 highly influential journalists from New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS were unabashedly liberal.
In 2005, a UCLA-led study confirmed that reality. Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and lead author of that study, followed up that report in 2011 with a book, Left Turn — How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. In it he revealed that every mainstream news outlet in the nation has a liberal bias. This is the sobering reality with which the GOP must contend. And it’s about time they did something about it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indoctrination — Our Biggest Nemesis
Indoctrination that is at work by leftist political organizations and the pliable media in their control.
As we have seen for the last six to seven years, the liberal media have wholly bought in to being propagandists for the Obama administration.
Not only have they given glowing support of Obama whenever they can, they conveniently leave out, when they can get away with it, any news items that would put Obama in a negative light or contradict the false image of him that the media has helped create.
President Obama is the first president ever put in power by the media.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
LSD-Laced Walmart Steak Hospitalizes Family
A family in Florida got an unexpected surprise this week when the steak they cooked turned out to have been mysteriously laced with LSD, sending everyone in the family to the hospital with hallucinations.
According to ABC, the family of four purchased bottom round steaks from their local Walmart and cooked them for dinner Monday night.
The Walmart meat comes prepackaged and is not handled by store employees, but the store handed over all the bottom round steak on their shelves for additional testing.
| — Hat tip: Egghead | [Return to headlines] |
Mitch McConnell is Vowing to ‘Crush’ The Tea Party Everywhere
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell predicted the GOP establishment will destroy conservative insurgents attempting to unseat a trio of incumbents in an interview with The New York Times published Sunday.
“I think we are going to crush them everywhere,” McConnell said. “I don’t think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country.”
McConnell is one of three establishment Republicans who are facing primary challengers backed by Tea Party conservative groups. The Senate Conservatives Fund, The Madison Project, and FreedomWorks are supporting Matt Bevin, McConnell’s rival, in Kentucky.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Southern Poverty Law Center’s Criteria for Naming ‘Hate Groups’ Subpoenaed
(CNSNews.com) — A local official in Virginia has subpoenaed the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the SPLC Task Force on Hate in the Public Sphere for the criteria it uses to designate other organizations as “hate groups.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The facade of gun control is falling
Very few attended a panel discussion on gun control in Austin, Texas yesterday even though the event was heavily promoted by media, proving once again the popularity of the Second Amendment and basic human freedoms as a whole.
Key leaders from the three largest gun control groups — Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Americans for Responsible Solutions and Moms Demand Action — not only organized the event but also spoke to the handful in attendance who occupied at most 10% of the available seats.
This despite the fact that the panel discussion was a registered event of South by Southwest, an internationally-known set of film, interactive and music festivals and conferences that takes place every spring in Austin with an attendance of at least 100,000 from across the world.
The lack of attendance for a gun control event is not unusual.
In San Antonio back in October, only around three people showed up for a gun control event organized by Moms Demand Action as a counter-protest to an open carry rally occurring simultaneously at the Alamo, of which an estimated 1,500 showed up in support for the Second Amendment.
The lack of attendance at these anti-gun events reveals that not only is gun control unpopular, but the groups organizing these events are not grassroots as they claim but are rather top-down front groups led by corrupt politicians such as former N.Y. mayor Michael Bloomberg.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Violent Partisans Will Destroy the Constitution
“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” — Speech at the Constitutional Convention, July 11, 1787 James Madison
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power.” -Thomas Jefferson
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” -James Madison
The words in the title of this article are not mine. They belong to the father of our Constitution, James Madison. Madison wrote a letter to G.I. Turberville when he was asked how he felt if another General Convention should be called. Here is what he wrote:
“You wish to know my sentiments on the project of (an Article V) Convention as suggested by New York. I shall give them to you with great frankness. If a General Convention were to take place for the avowed and sole purpose of revising the Constitution, it would naturally consider itself as having a greater latitude than the Congress appointed to administer and support as well as to amend the system; it would consequently give greater agitation to the public mind; an election into it would be courted by the most violent partizans [sic] on both sides; it would probably consist of the most heterogeneous characters; would be the very focus of that flame which has already too much heated men of all parties; would no doubt contain individuals of insidious views, who under the mask of seeking alterations popular in some parts but inadmissible in other parts of the Union might have a dangerous opportunity of sapping the very foundations of the fabric.”
“Under all these circumstances it seems scarcely to be presumable that the deliberations of the body could be conducted in harmony, or terminate in the general good. Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a Second, meeting in the present temper of America, and under all the disadvantages I have mentioned.”
This letter was written November 2, 1788, only one year after the original Constitutional Convention, and Madison was worried about the violent partizans, the heterogeneous characters, and the individuals of insidious views. His urgent warning is even more important today, 226 years later. I cannot think of one single politician or personage in any of the 50 states who could come close to matching the statesmanship of the founders who were delegates at our 1787 Constitutional Convention.
[…]
We must ask, who is funding the new push for a con-con?
The Money Behind Article V
There is no telling what some of the delegates will bring to the table no matter what “commission” they have instructing them (see Move to Amend below). One thing is certain, the LEFT, the progressives, the socialists, the Internationalists, the hardcore communists in our country, won’t sit on the sidelines of such a Convention. They’ll be in the convention and lobbying for their communist agenda.
[Comment: Read this article.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels Frees Up 12 Billion Euros for Italy
Reduces co-finance limits for 2007-2013 funding program
(ANSA) — Brussels, March 10 — The European Union announced Monday that 12 billion euros have been freed up for Italy through renegotiation of a 2007-2013 regional budget program between the EU and Italy. Italy was originally expected to co-finance fully 50% but in a statement, EU Commissioner of Regional Policy Johannes Hahn said it has lowered the rate to 25%.
To date, Italy has used only about 54% of available funds, meaning about 12 billion euros could still be accessed so long as it finances its 25% share of eligible projects.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU-US Trade Talks Resume Amid Controversy
EU and US delegates are meeting in Brussels for a fourth round of trade talks aimed at creating the world’s largest free-trade zone. But critics say it could hurt consumers, workers and the environment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Four Jailed in France for Attempting to Wage Jihad Abroad
PARIS: A French court sentenced four men to up to seven years in jail Monday for having tried to wage jihad abroad, at a time of concern over the mounting number of nationals going to fight in Syria. The four were accused of having tried — and failed — to reach jihadist hotspots in 2009 and 2010 and of having facilitated the departure to a zone on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan of two other Frenchmen who were later killed in a US army raid…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
More and more young Muslims are being radicalized and coaxed into fighting in Syria by Salafists. Both teachers and parents have reasons for concern, because there is currently a lack of strategies to protect teenagers…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Image With Armed Statue Sparks Legal Action From Italy
(AGI) Rome, March 8 — Italy’s Cultural Heritage Minister Dario Franceschini said Saturday that U.S. weapon manufacturer Armalite Inc’s publicity with Michelangelo’s statue of David holding a rifle violates the law. “We will take legal action against the American company. They must immediately remove the campaign,” he wrote on Twitter. Cristina Acidini, supervisor of the Florentine Museum complex, said she plans to send a formal notice to the company to stop using the image.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 5-Star Movement Senator Faces Possible Expulsion
Loses confidence vote at party meeting in his constituency
(ANSA) — Rome, March 10 — After comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo expelled a total of nine Senators from his anti-establishment Five-Star Movement (M5S), another parliamentarian with the party faces a possible expulsion for criticizing it.
Senator Bartolomeo Pepe on Sunday received a no-confidence motion from the local assembly of the M5S in Naples, his constituency, M5S parliamentarian Roberto Fico, who heads the parliamentary commission that oversees State broadcaster RAI, said on Monday.
The vote does not imply that a procedure to expel the Senator has been started yet, though it makes it likely, Fico noted.
Fico said he would personally “vote for the expulsion”. Grillo expelled five Senators from his movement last Thursday after they tendered their resignation as parliamentarians in solidarity with four former party members who had been similarly ejected. “You are isolated and cannot continue to be the official representatives in the institutions. Alessandra Bencini, Laura Bignami, Monica Casaletto, Mary Mussini and Maurizio Romani are out of the M5S,” Grillo wrote on his blog. Senators Luis Alberto Orellana, Francesco Campanella, Fabrizio Bocchino and Lorenzo Battista were expelled from the M5S following an on-line vote for criticizing their leader’s tirade against Premier Matteo Renzi during his government-formation.
The incident has brought tensions within Italy’s second-biggest political force to a head amid accusations that the movement is far from democratic.
Senators with the movement are now down from 50 to 41. (photo: Senator Bartolomeo Pepe)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Prosecutor Seeks 20-Year Jail Term for Pickaxe Killer
Possible motive ‘resentment against society’
(ANSA) — Milan, March 10 — Milan prosecutor Isidoro Palma on Monday sought a 20-year jail term for Adam Kabobo, a Ghanian man who killed three people with a pickaxe last year.
The state attorney supported a defense plea of diminished responsibility and asked that the defendant, who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, spend six years in a clinic after he serves his jail term.
Mada ‘Adam’ Kabobo went on a rampage with a pickaxe at dawn on May 11, 2013, killing three passersby in an apparently random attack.
The 21-year-old was taken into custody shortly after the attacks in a residential area on the northern outskirts of Milan.
A Milan judge previously found that Kabobo knew what he was doing at the time of the rampage.
The young killer later tried to strangle his cellmate in Milan’s San Vittore prison, telling authorities he did it because he was hearing voices.
On Monday, the prosecutor cited as a possible motive for the killings Kabobo’s “resentment against society” because the immigrant felt alienated.
Palma said the Ghanian immigrant also possibly intended to rob his victims as he stole their cell phones.
Kabobo, he stressed, acted “with a clear mind”.
A judge has ruled against transferring Kabobo to a psychiatric ward pending the ongoing fast-track trial and against carrying out another psychiatric evaluation.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
San Marino: Tiny State, Big Baggage
The trial of a former head of state has brought unwanted media attention on the often overlooked San Marino, the world’s oldest Republic. The nation, which is already reeling from the financial crisis, is not amused.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: German Princess Denies Making ‘Killing Muslims’ Comment at St Andrews Charity Event
A German princess appeared in handcuffs at Cupar Sheriff Court on Monday charged with a string of offences including a claim she made racial comments about “killing Muslims”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Spain Says Still a Target 10 Years After Train Bombs (Video)
MADRID, March 10 — A decade after Al-Qaeda-inspired bombers blew apart four Madrid commuter trains, killing 191 people, Spain’s government warned the country remains a target.
On the eve of the 10th anniversary of Spain’s worst terrorist attack, Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said Islamist extremists were still a threat. Al-Qaeda’s leaders and its affiliates, including north African group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and armed fighters battling the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, referred frequently in their statements to “Al Andalus”, or Spain, the minister told Onda Cero radio. “Clearly Spain forms part of the strategic objectives of global jihad. We are not the only ones but we are in their sights obviously,” Fernandez Diaz said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Stonehenge’s mighty bluestones sing when struck
The bluestones ‘sing’ when they are hit, resonating with an apparently unique twang that does not appear to reach the same pitch or musical note as other stones which merely ‘thud’.
Some previous theories surrounding Stonehenge’s sonic qualities — the way the stone circle would have captured and reverberated sound — had been rather dismissed by the experts concentrating on astronomy and landscape, but the new study appears to reinforce the importance of sound, and the sonic qualities of the stones themselves.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hate Preacher Drives Al Qaeda Van Through London Street
An extremist preacher could face prosecution after driving a van emblazoned with radical Islamist logos through a busy London high street, The Sunday Times reports.
The “Al Qaeda van” stunt was staged by Anjem Choudary and his followers in a north London high street last Saturday. Footage was uploaded to Youtube by the username ‘Need4Khilafah’.
The van was covered with posters in English and Arabic, including the logo of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a radical militant group fighting in the Syrian civil war.
In the Youtube footage, Choudary appears while supporters chant in praise of ISIS. The Times reports that one of the supporters uses a loudspeaker to shout from within the van: “Islam is the solution for Great Britain, Islam is the solution for the world.”
Speaking to the Times, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, Raffaello Pantucci, said: “The use of this logo and the call for an Islamic state in London seems very reminiscent of ISIS in Syria.”
“On paper, this group, Need4Khilafah, looks like al-Muhajiroun and its many offshoots. It’s the same group of people involved in the same type of activities.”
ISIS have become notorious in Syria for imposing a strict interpretation of Islamic law on the territories they control. They have also split the rebellion against Bashar al Assad by attacking fellow rebel groups for not being sufficiently devout in their Islamic practices.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A Muslim headmistress told last night how she was driven out of her job by extremists bent on taking over state schools.
Her school is one of 12 apparently targeted by Islamic fundamentalists in a plot dating back two decades.
In a letter seen by the Mail, a fanatic brags about enlisting four radical parents to help oust her in 1993.
She said: ‘I was the victim of a pernicious, well-orchestrated smear campaign I have never been able to recover from.
‘People need to know this is a dangerous, well-organised and sinister group who have the capacity to destroy. They are producing fear in society and playing on paranoia. They are extremely powerful.’
The 69-year-old believes she was seen as an enemy because she was too moderate a Muslim. She was confronted with a number of allegations, including one of financial mismanagement.
Despite protesting her innocence her dismissal followed in 1994.
She added: ‘I was involved in a campaign so nasty that, since I lost the headship, I’ve never been able to raise my head above the parapet.
‘I was shocked to read this letter after 20 years and I am genuinely scared by it.’
Details of the extraordinary plot, which have been referred to the police, emerged on Friday after the letter was passed to Birmingham Council and a number of newspapers.
The unnamed author admits making false claims against several teachers in Birmingham in order to oust them.
The document discusses extending the ‘jihad’ operation to Bradford and Manchester — cities with fast growing Muslim populations.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nigel Farage: The Main Parties Don’t Listen to the Working Classes
Ukip is drawing support not just from disaffected Tories — its message now resonates with voters from all sides
I don’t really like talking about the strategy and tactics of the Conservative Party — why intrude on private grief? My preferred approach is to get on with spreading the positive Ukip message and picking up extra support.
But something the Tories have been saying in recent weeks really does need countering. It is the idea that Ukip voters belong at some deep level to the Conservative Party and that by luring them away, Ukip is in danger of putting a Left-wing Labour government into power by default. Vote Ukip, get Miliband, say people such as Grant Shapps (I think that is the name the Tory chairman is using these days)…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Our Policies Are Absurd and My Colleagues Are Hated, Says Minister
Stephen Williams, local government minister launches attack on his boss, his colleagues and his own department’s policies
The Conservative planning minister is “hated” by MPs in his own party and their department’s own policies are “absurd”, one of his colleagues has said. Nick Boles is “hyperactive” and has overseen a policy that is “constantly changing,” Stephen Williams, a Liberal Democrat minister said, as he called for councils to be allowed to impose fresh taxes on local businesses.
In comments that will raise questions about his future in the department, Mr Williams said being compared to his boss, Eric Pickles, the Conservative Secretary of State, was the “most grievous possible insult” he could deliver…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: PC Keith Blakelock Murder Trial: Officer Curled Up in Ball as He Was Attacked
Court hears how police officer curled up in a ball and screamed for help as a mob hacked him to death during the Broadwater Farm riots.
A man has described a “free for all” as a police officer was pulled to the ground by a mob which shouted “kill the beasty” at the Broadwater Farm riots before he was killed. Pc Blakelock, a father of three, was killed when he was attacked by a mob during riots at the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, north London, in October 1985…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Voters More Receptive to UKIP Than Polls Show — Study
(Reuters) — Potential support for anti-European Union party UKIP far exceeds that suggested by opinion polls, with almost a third of voters holding views in line with its supporters, according to a study to be published this week…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Moroccan Woman Gets 10 Years in Jail for Killing Her Rapist
A Moroccan court jailed a woman for ten years for killing a man who had repeatedly raped her, local media reported on Friday. The 34-year-old woman, known as Fatima, said she had sought help and reported the attacks to local authorities but was faced with indifference.
“He killed me a thousand times before I killed him too,” local media quoted the woman as saying. In court in the northern city of Fe’s, Fatima told judges how she killed her rapist with an axe, disfigured him, and dumped his body in a river…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UAE’s Arabtec Agrees $40 Billion Housing Project With Egypt Army
One million low-income housing units to cover 160 million sqm, with most of the units in Greater Cairo.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Accuses Separatists in Eastern Libya of Oil Theft
Military force authorized to liberate ports
A general view of oil storage tanks at the Hariga oil seaport in the city of Tobruk (Archive)
(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI — The United States on Monday accused separatists in eastern Libya of oil theft. On Saturday the group announced they were beginning to export oil without authorization from the central government.
The exports are occurring on a North Korean-flagged ship that entered the Sidra port illegally, said Jen Psaki, US State Department spokeswoman. She said that the rebels’ selling of oil was tantamount to stealing from the Libyan people. “The oil belongs to the Libyan National Oil Company and its joint venture partners,” Psaki said, noting the partners include US companies and warning would-be buyers of possible sanctions and liabilities.
The selling of the oil was called a “criminal act” by Tripoli, and the Libyan defense ministry ordered intervention to stop the Morning Glory tanker whenever it leaves the port. The former rebels nevertheless continued to load the tanker, which has a capacity of 350,000 barrels. Local media report that the tanker has loaded crude oil worth some 36 million US dollars.
The intention to export crude oil independently of Libyan authorities was announced on Saturday by Abdo Rabbo Al-Barassi, prime minister of the self-proclaimed government of Cyrenaica. The export operation will be the first attempted by the Barqa (Arabic name of Cyrenaica) Political Office, which declared regional autonomy in recent months. The body was formed by a former revolutionary, Ibrahim Jadran, who in late July led the blockade on the country’s largest ports, demanding the right to a greater share of export revenues and accusing the government of corruption in oil sales. Some sources say that Morning Glory is registered in the Persian Gulf and not actually under Pyongyang’s control.
The Libyan General National Congress (GNC) has meanwhile passed a resolution calling for the formation of a military force to liberate the largest oil terminals in the country, occupied since late July by a separatist group. The news was reported by parliamentary sources. The resolution authorizes Libyan army units and militias from different areas but affiliated with the government to set up a military force to put an end to the blockade of the largest ports and restore control over them by the authorities. The new formation will later be tasked with protecting oil facilities. The military operation will begin next week.
Libyan oil output fell to its lowest-ever level in 2013: 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) compared with the 1.6 million during the Gaddafi period. The oil crisis has had detrimental effects on the Libyan economy, which depends primarily on oil.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Troops Kill Palestinian Near West Bank-Jordan Crossing: Sources
RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM, March 10 (Xinhua) — Israeli troops on Monday shot dead a Palestinian man who allegedly tried to snatch a weapon from an Israeli soldier at the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Palestinian and Israeli sources said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu Blasts World’s ‘Self-Deception’ On Iran as Intercepted Weapons Unveiled
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the international community’s “self-deception” regarding Iran as defense officials unveiled an arsenal of weapons the Islamic Republic is accused of trying to smuggle into Gaza.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
42 African Refugees Drown Off Yemeni Coast
SANAA, March 9 (Xinhua) — About 42 African refugees drowned on Sunday evening off the Yemeni coast after their boat capsized in the Gulf of Aden, while about 30 people on the boat were rescued, the Yemeni defense ministry said in a statement.
The accident took place a few kilometers away off the Bir Ali coast of Yemen’s southern province of Shabwa on Sunday evening, according to the statement that is posted on the ministry’s website…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A New Arab Cold War: Saudi Arabia Pressures Qatar on Muslim Brotherhood, American Think Tanks
By Juan Cole
Saudi Arabia’s listing of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and the withdrawal of the Saudi, Kuwaiti United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain ambassadors from Qatar signal a big geopolitical realignment in the Middle East.
Qatar is the Red Prince of the Middle East. Despite being fabulously wealthy because of its natural gas exports, its foreign policy has been populist, showing a special fondness for the Muslim Brotherhood and a dislike of the Middle East’s secular authoritarian dictators, including Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Qatar has used its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood as a form of soft power in places like Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Egypt. Its popular Aljazeera Arabic news channel cheered on the 2011 popular upheavals in the region.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
One of the world’s most respected Islamic institutions has issued a fatwa against a Hollywood epic about Noah’s Ark because it ‘contradicts the teachings of Islam’.
Russell Crowe’s £75million film Noah has also been banned in three Arab countries after religious leaders complained that it depicted the Biblical figure — who is also a holy messenger in the Koran.
Due to premiere later this month, the blockbuster will not show in Qatar, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates and several other countries are expected to follow suit.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A British rapper who joined rebels fighting the Syrian regime has claimed he was kidnapped, tortured and robbed by members of rival Islamic terror groups.
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 23, walked out of his family’s £1million home in Maida Vale, west London, last year to join militant groups, telling them he was ‘leaving everything for the sake of Allah’.
Now Bary — whose music has featured on BBC Radio 1 — has posted on Twitter that he and another Briton were abducted and robbed, with their money, phones and guns stolen by other jihadists.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan Summons Israeli Charge D’affaires Over Killing of Judge
AMMAN, March 10 (Xinhua) — Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Monday summoned the Israeli charge d’affaires after Israeli troops killed a Jordanian judge at the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, the state-run Petra news agency reported…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Little Solace for Syrians on Beirut’s Streets
The streets of Beirut are becoming ever more crowded as the tiny country is flooded with refugees from across the border in Syria. But the government still does not have a policy on what to do with them.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ma’aloula Nuns Freed in Exchange for 150 Rebels Held Prisoner
The release took place around midnight, hours after the news first broke. The Lebanese and Qatari security chiefs Abbas Ibrahim and Ghanim al- Kubaisi were key mediators. The nuns were held on the second and third floor of a house controlled by the Al Nusra Front rebels for two months. Great publicity and media alerted ahead of release.
Beirut ( AsiaNews) — The group of Orthodox nuns kidnapped last December in Maaloula were released last night around midnight. In return, the Syrian regime released 153 rebels held prisoners.
The 13 nuns and three of their assistants were received by a convoy of cars that had arrived in Rahoua in Syria from Arsal in the Bekaa district of Lebanon.
The news of their imminent release had broken yesterday morning. All day, a Lebanese security convoy, headed by Security Chief Gen. Abbas Ibrahim waited on the Syrian border for hours for the go ahead to collect the nuns. According to Lebanese media sources, the kidnappers had second thoughts , but in the end the sisters were brought to safety. It is assumed — but not certain -that they were brought to Damascus.
Their first statements described how they had “arrived late” and were “tired”, but that they were “well treated” by their kidnappers .
In recent days it became clear that the nuns had been kidnapped by the Al Nusra Front, a rebel group linked to al Qaeda, fighting with the Syrian government but also with other rebel groups to head the opposition. The Al Nusra Front has been branded as “terrorist” even by Saudi Arabia, the main sponsor of the Syrian rebels.
There were many mediators for the nuns’ release. The most important were Gen. Ibrahim and the Gen. Ghanim al- Kubaisi, Qatari Chief of Security, another strong rebel supporter, both present at the release. The two had already worked effectively for the release of a group of Shiite pilgrims from Iran last October.
Abducted on 3 December Maaloula , north of Damascus, the sisters were brought to Yabroud , about 20 km to the north, currently under fire from the Syrian regular army . According to Bishop Louka Khouri the Greek — Orthodox patriarch of Syria, the Syrian army’s pressure on Yabroud facilitated the nun’s release.
George Hasouani, another mediator who had negotiated in vain with the Al Nusra Front, said that the nuns were held for two months in a house he owned in Yabroud , living together in the second and third floor, while the first was occupied by the rebels. In this way they could receive food, clothing, blankets and medicines, as some of them are suffering from hypertension and diabetes.
Many Lebanese were surprised by the media clamor that surround the nun’s release. A large number of journalists and broadcasters were summoned to the border between Syria and Lebanon.
Two bishops of Aleppo, Greek — Orthodox bishop Boulos Yazigi , and Syrian Orthodox bishop Youhanna Ibrahim, and some priests are still in the hands of their kidnappers, including Italian Jesuit missionary Fr. Paolo dall’Oglio.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Tension With Qatar, UAE and Riad Journalists Quit Newspapers
Unprecedented crisis among Gulf countries,Bahrain calls for calm
(by Alessandra Antonelli) (ANSAmed) — DUBAI, MARCH 10 — Tensions remain unabated between Qatar and three of its sister states in the Gulf — Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain — which last week withdrew their ambassadors. On the contrary, it is spreading to other levels: several Saudi and Emirati journalists have left the Qatari newspapers for which they worked.
The Emirati sports commentators Faris Awadh and Said al-Kabi resigned from the program “Be In Sport”, formerly known as al-Jazeera Sport.
Both reporters announced the end of their collaboration via social networks without hinting at a possible political cause, forced or not.
The Saudi commentator Samar Al Mogren, linked to the newspaper Qatary Daily, on the other hand explicitly tweeted, “The Ministry of Culture and Information has decided to terminate the collaboration of Saudi journalists with Qatari newspapers”.
The unprecedented crisis assumed public and diplomatic dimensions last Wednesday with the announcement of the withdrawal of ambassadors from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Manama.
Qatar does not respect the agreements of non-interference in the internal affairs of neighboring countries, the three countries had written in a joint statement.
The regional standoff is not new, however. It reached culmination with Doha supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which is accused of facilitating the organization of cells in the other countries of the Gulf where the Muslim Brotherhood is deemed illegal.
Qatari backing of the Muslim Brotherhood also meant support for the former Morsi government in Egypt, which both allowed attacks on neighbouring countries by the group’s media platforms and from its mosques.
It is a crisis that has not even left literature immune. The writer Abdo Khal, winner of the Arabic Booker Prize — for the first time an author of one of the Gulf countries — declined to participate in the awards ceremony in Doha, where two evenings of meetings and speeches had been dedicated to him.
“With the tension of dramatic events in these days, and the withdrawal of the Saudi ambassador from Qatar, I have decided not to go to Doha,” commented Khal, who emphasized that he was not advised or constrained by anyone to not go and receive the prize. Seeking to douse the flames is Bahrain, already a protagonist in one of the chapters of the Arab Spring of 2011. The foreign minister of the small and tumultuous oil emirate, Khalid bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, from his twitter profile invited calm and called for “leaving the controversies to the responsible parties”.
“It is their job to handle them. And I hope that no one offends one of his brothers across the border,” he wrote to more than 160,000 regular followers.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Erdogan’s Fear of YouTube and Facebook
The Turkish premier’s phone calls keep appearing on the Internet. Now Erdogan has announced that he intends to block the Internet platforms YouTube and Facebook. A restriction of free speech — but an ineffective one.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Beyond Ukraine: Russia’s Imperial Mess
Russia’s occupation of Crimea has violated international law and created a new crisis among world leaders. Now the EU and the US are fighting over the best means to address Russia’s reawakened expansionary ambitions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Crimeans Bet on Russian Rubles
In Simferopol, few seem to doubt how the upcoming referendum on joining Russia will turn out. There’s a widespread sense that Putin has already decided the outcome, and the focus is turning to practical matters.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Crimean Tatars Fear Return of Russian Rule in Historical Homeland Now Part of Ukraine
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — The arrival of Russian troops in Crimea has opened old wounds among the Crimean Tatars, who were deported during World War II. Fearing that once again they will be unwelcome in their homeland, some are organizing community-watch patrols to protect their families and homes in a place they strongly feel should remain part of Ukraine.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Geography, History, And the Crimean Crisis
Apart from one brief mention on the Sunday Fox News Report, I have not come across any reference to the simple fact that since Russian ejection of the Ottoman Turks from the Crimean Peninsula by Catherine the great in 1783, the region has always been part of the Great Russian concept of the motherland and Russian language through Czarist times and including the first thirty-five years of incorporation in the USSR when it was NOT an administrative unit of the Ukrainian SSR but of the RSFSR (Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic).
Its transfer by administrative fiat in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was an act of cosmetic political farce designed purely to throw Ukrainians a bone and pretend this “generosity” would help erase long memories of the terrible famines of the 1930s (largely caused by Stalin’s policies) and the large degree of collaboration with the German invaders in World War II, thereby solidifying the “brotherhood” of the two peoples. Khrushchev was of mixed Russian and Ukrainian ancestry and was detested in the Ukraine as serving his Russian masters. His “generous’ was designed to pacify Ukrainian pride and promote his own image.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Deploys Recon Planes Above Members Poland, Romania Amid Crisis in Crimea
NATO plans to monitor Russia’s border with member nations Poland and Romania amid the crisis in Ukraine, according to a report.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski: ‘Moscow Needs Our Money’
In a SPIEGEL interview, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, 51, argues Moscow is more vulnerable than many think, and that the EU should take a firmer stand against Russia in the Ukraine conflict.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Flags Flood Crimean Capital as Thousands Back Takeover
Russian flags flooded Lenin Square in the centre of Crimea’s capital Simferopol Sunday as thousands rallied in support of Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula — vastly overwhelming a smaller pro-Ukraine demonstration nearby.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Troops Seize Hospital, Missile Base in Ukraine’s Crimea
Russian troops seized a military hospital and a missile base in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea Monday, in the latest show of force in the battle for the country’s disputed future.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Ukrainian Border, Where Putin, Europe and the United States Risk Their Demise
The Ukrainian territory has always been fought over and occupied by Poles, Mongols, Russians. Tsar Putin’s claims too great, the European Union’s proposals too empty, the United States’ proclamations too confusing. The demise of ideologies and grand schemes and the emergence of people power.
Moscow ( AsiaNews) — The Russian word u — kraina, from which the name of the State in turmoil these days is derived, means “on the margins”, the borderline. In fact, as the first two decades of the post-Soviet area draws to a close, Ukraine as an independent nation has never existed in chronological and socio-political terms.
The territory of the ancient principality of Kiev, homeland of the Eastern Slavs now divided between Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, was never established as a State in itself, after suffering a long Mongol occupation (the “Tatar yoke” of the XIII — XV centuries).
In the modern era, since the era of Great Poland and its attempts to annex all of the eastern territories, Ukraine has always been part of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, and certainly not an insignificant part. The westernmost part (Galicia) somehow always remained in the Polish orbit, and the capital of this region, Lviv, still today — despite the long Soviet dominance — has all the appearance of a small Central European and Habsburg town, closer to Prague and Budapest than Kiev and Moscow.
On the other hand , the annexation of the Crimea in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine is recent history, courtesy of the Ukrainian Khruschev as a gift to his native region, decided after a night of vodka-induced debauchery. Even the eastern territories, with important industrial cities like Khar’kov , Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk, are an expression of the so-called “Little Russia” , the one area where the Russians arrived en-masse to become a consistent part of the local population, but one which has never fully integrated. These include the Jews, who in turn settled in the great Ukrainian port of Odessa, the city from where ships departed to populate and form the state of Israel.
Ultimately, Ukraine, is nothing more than the sum of the contradictions of Russian history , and much of that of Europe. Contradictions which explode regularly at every epochal change, as is the case recently with the usual riots and the usual fears, that have characterized such events from the seventeenth century to the present day. This means that the entire modern era, has been unable to resolve them ..
At the end of the day there are three main contradictions:
1 ) A Europe that still does not know what it is;
2 ) A Russia that does not know what it is not;
3 ) An East and West, that do not know their own boundaries.
In Ukraine’s recent crisis, Europe has clearly demonstrated that it does not know who or what it is, wants, plans to do or where it is going. It has proposed a fragile, hazy, unsustainable model of integration for Ukraine, as indeed is the case for all the other countries that make up the so-called European Union, and now finds itself left with the hot potato and no idea how get rid of it.
Russia has sought to reassert its power, and dominant role, towards a territory that it considers just as Ukraine and towards Europe for which it has no consideration at all. Each new Tsar, like Putin today, want to repeat the march of Alexander I, who defeated Napoleon: enter Paris in triumph, battalions of its Cossacks (Ukrainian) setting up camp on its avenues, and impose the Holy Alliance in the name of Russian Orthodoxy , the only true faith capable of saving the world.
But Putin has had to limit himself to taking back the Crimea, where the local population is almost exclusively Russian, a kind of empty bottle left by Khrushchev .
The East has clashed again with the West, in a place where boundaries are blurred and jurisdictions overlapping even those of the Orthodox Church: in Ukraine there is in fact an autonomous Metropolitan, one loyal to Moscow, a third from Constantinople and a fourth obedient to the Pope, as well as other rather indecipherable sub-schisms.
The country which is itself a borderland, clearly demonstrates that it does not know in which direction to look to view the world , and lays bare the very concepts of East and West, as empty containers of ideals and models that are constantly overtaken by history.
Russia is not really East, just as America is not really West, in this millennium of globalization that is resetting all the certainties and regressing the world to the indefinite proportions of ancient times. America looks to the Ukrainian and European cauldron no longer able to see its way ahead: who is with us, who is against us? The good guy and bad guy division does not work anymore, as we have seen in Syria and all the crises in the Middle East; the twentieth century Afghan lesson should have been enough to put an end to that, where America enthusiastically supported “freedom fighter” Osama Bin Laden …
The Ukrainian crisis puts an end to Putin’s dream of restoring the Soviet Union purified of Soviet ideology in the name of Holy Orthodoxy . It also puts an end to Europe’s hypocrisy that it is the home of all peoples, but a home that people cannot get into or out of.
It also ends the American dream, of drawing Far West boundaries around the world and penning all the Indians up in their reserves .
And maybe, just maybe, the time of men and peoples can now begin, who in Ukraine, in a land of origins and boundaries, have found the desire to write their own story.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine Bosnified, Putin Hitlerized
By Srdja Trifkovic
On March 6 President Obama said in Washington that the Crimean authorities’ plans for a referendum “violate the Ukrainian Constitution and violate international law.” “Any discussion about the future of Ukraine must include the legitimate government of Ukraine. We are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratically elected leaders,” he added. “Crimea is Ukraine,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in Rome on the same day.
Interesting. Six years ago the United States enthusiastically recognized the Kosovo Albanian authorities’ self-proclaimed independence, which violated the Serbian constitution and violated international law. The legitimate government of Serbia was not included in any discussions which preceded the American decision. The United States initiated the redrawing of Serbia’s borders with an act of armed aggression in 1999, and then formally condoned it in February 2008, over the heads of Serbia’s democratically elected President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica. Furthermore, in September 2012 Obama’s then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “the boundaries of an independent, sovereign Kosovo are clear and set.” A few days earlier Obama himself claimed, incredibly, that “Kosovo has made significant progress in solidifying the gains of independence and in building the institutions of a modern, multi-ethnic, inclusive and democratic state.”
A President capable of thus characterizing that KLA-run black hole of thuggery and lawlessness — the worst-ruled spot by far in all of Europe — is beyond logic or reason. It would be therefore useless to point out to Obama that the government in Kiev has no legitimacy whatsoever, having grabbed power through a sustained campaign of revolutionary brutality and having violated the Ukrainian constitution and other laws in the process. Obama’s claim that the leaders of the regime in Kiev were “democratically elected” is unsurprising, however, coming as it does from a man whose hold on reality — at home and abroad — is becoming more tenuous by the day.
Lest we forget, on February 21 President Viktor Yanukovich and three Ukrainian parliamentary party leaders signed a “reconciliation agreement” co-signed by foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland — implying that their countries and the EU guaranteed the deal — and approved by a Russian representative. The document provided for constitutional reform reducing presidential powers, the creation of a government of national unity, early presidential election, and disbandment of Maidan armed factions. Far from disbanding, within hours those same armed factions forced Yanukovich to flee Kiev and stage-managed a parliamentary “vote,” worthy of the proceedings of the Supreme Soviet ca. 1937, which ushered in the putschist regime.
As Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said on March 4, Yanukovich “had in fact given up his power already, and as I told him, he had no chance of being re-elected. What was the purpose of all those illegal, unconstitutional actions, why did they have to create this chaos in the country? Armed and masked militants are still roaming the streets of Kiev. This is a question to which there is no answer.” Well, there is one, and he knows it. As a BBC commentator pointed out on March 5, what makes Putin mad is the feeling that he is being deceived:…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Under Construction: Crossing the New ‘Border’ Into Crimea
A makeshift border is now under construction between Ukraine’s mainland and its Crimean peninsula. While it might be a sign of Russian confidence in Crimea, for now the ad-hoc “crossing” has the makings of a farce.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysian Officials Say Oil Slicks Spotted in South China Sea Do Not Belong to Missing Plane
Officials investigating the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 people on board say oil slicks spotted by rescue crews in the South China Sea do not belong to the aircraft.
More than 48 hours after the plane disappeared from radar screens, a multinational search team consisting of dozens of ships and aircraft had failed to find any sign of the aircraft’s fate.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysian Airlines Missing Passengers Cell Phones Ringing Raises Hijack Concerns
It is being reported today, March 9, by the Singapore press in The Sunday Times that a Chinese family has successfully dialed and rang the mobile cell phone of a passenger on board the Malaysia Airlines plane MH370. This story has been followed by several other accounts of the same scenario withing different families. The Boeing 777 jumbo jet is still missing with no wreckage debris anywhere to be found.
Today, the brother of a man who is listed on the missing airplane’s manifest demonstrated for Chinese television that he could dial his sibling’s mobile phone, which was with him on the plane, and that the call was connected and rang several times indicating the phone is working, turned on and able to be answered somewhere. This family and many others are angry and urging government agencies to trace the ringing cell phone, before the batteries runs out, to find the missing plane and passengers, as they could have landed covertly on dry land and are being held captive by terrorists or other possible entities.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysia: Australian Security Expert Carl Ungerer Says Passport Failure a Massive Concern
A terrorism expert says the use of stolen passports on flight 370 ‘‘eerily’’ resembles a 1994 attack on a Philippines flight by an al-Qaeda-linked hijacker and represents a ‘‘massive security failure’’.
As the vanished Malaysia Airlines flight focused international attention on the problem of passport fraud, Carl Ungerer, an independent security consultant and former adviser to past foreign minister Bob Carr, said there was a thriving market for stolen and doctored documentation in south-east Asia.
Ramzi Yousef, who was later convicted in connection with the 1993 US World Trade Centre bombing, planted a bomb on a Philippine Airlines flight in 1994, killing one passenger but failing to bring down the plane. He used a stolen Italian passport — a similar situation to the stolen Italian and Austrian passports used by two passengers in boarding the vanished flight 370…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet: Why it Could Still be Terrorism
The fact no one has claimed responsibility for the disappearance of Flight MH370 does not mean terrorism can be ruled out
History is littered with atrocities where either no one has ever claimed responsibility or where there was a long delay before a terror group admitted it. In the worst terrorism outrage of all — the September 11 attacks — it was several months before al Qaeda accepted responsibility…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Six Important Facts You’re Not Being Told About Lost Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
(NaturalNews) There are some astonishing things you’re not being told about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the flight that simply vanished over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board.
The mystery of the flight’s sudden and complete disappearance has even the world’s top air safety authorities baffled. “Air-safety and antiterror authorities on two continents appeared equally stumped about what direction the probe should take,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
WSJ goes on to report:
“For now, it seems simply inexplicable,” said Paul Hayes, director of safety and insurance at Ascend Worldwide, a British advisory and aviation data firm.
While investigators are baffled, the mainstream media isn’t telling you the whole story, either. So I’ve assembled this collection of facts that should raise serious questions in the minds of anyone following this situation:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Taliban Vows to Disrupt Afghan Elections
The Taliban has urged its fighters to target polling staff, voters and security forces in Afghanistan’s April 5 elections. Monday’s statement is the Taliban’s first formal threat of violence over the upcoming vote.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two Killed in Western Afghan Bomb Attack
HERAT, Afghanistan, March 10 (Xinhua) — Two police were killed while seven civilians were wounded Monday in a bomb attack in western Afghanistan’s province of Herat, police said.
“The militants detonated an explosive-packed motorcycle in Kushk district at around midday, killing two policemen and injuring seven civilians, including a child,” the provincial police chief Samiullah Qatra told Xinhua…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Davao Del Sur: Philippine Army and Communist Rebels Clash, 11 Dead and 10 Injured
New People’s Army rebels step un dawn attacks on police and military barracks in the southern province of Mindanao. Rebels seize firearms and two radios. The army counter-offensive results in two deaths and nine arrests among the guerrillas.
Manila (AsiaNews/Agencies) — At least 11 people were killed and 10 people injured in a series of attacks in the last hour carried out in Matanao, southern province of Davao del Sur, Mindanao Island by Filipino communist rebels. At dawn a hundred guerrillas attacked a police station in the city, killing two officers and wounding three others. During the raid the fighters detonated a mine that exploded as an army battalion passed killing seven soldiers and wounding seven seriously.
The surprise attack was launched by the communist and separatist guerrillas of the New People’s Army. Their target was the municipal police in the Matanao barracks (990 km south of Manila). Military sources report that the attack was led by Felix Armodia, known as Jing, of the NPA’s Front 72.
Witnesses report that the rebels seized a dozen firearms and two radios from the barracks. In response , the army organized a hunt to find those responsible for the assault. In the clashes between guerrillas and soldiers at least two militants died, nine arrests were made.
Just last week another 17 soldiers and civilians were injured in the explosion of a landmine planted by communist guerrillas in Bansalan , also in Davao del Sud , some ambulances sent to the scene of the attack were also involved in ‘bomb explosion’. This is confirmation — according to the army captain William Rodriguez — that the rebels, despite their claims, are still using anti-personnel mines”.
Philippine communist guerrillas have been fighting the Manila government since the late 1960’s. Overtime they have become one of the oldest and bloodiest armed rebel movements throughout the Asian continent. The Netherlands has in the past hosted peace talks between the two sides , interrupted in 2004. Despite the attempts of President Benigno Aquin , who has made negotiations one of the first objectives of his mandate , the attempt to reopen negotiations foundered in April last year instead the fighting erupted once more with renewed intensity ..
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
It’s Kim in a Landslide: Not One Vote Cast Against Kim Jong UN in North Korea Election
With no one else on the ballot, state media reported Monday that supreme leader Kim Jong Un was not only elected to the highest legislative body in North Korea, he won with the unanimous approval of his district, which had 100 percent turnout.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The cameraman who filmed Steve Irwin’s final moments has spoken for the first time about the Crocodile Hunter’s shocking death. Justin Lyons was in the water with Irwin when he was killed by a stingray eight years ago and told how the sting ray stabbed his mate ‘hundreds of times’, including one blow that punctured his heart.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Healthcare Services Collapse as Doctors, Nurses Flee Borno
Healthcare services have collapsed in the northern part of Nigeria’s Borno State as doctors, nurses and pharmacists flee for their lives from brutal violence unleashed by Islamist Boko Haram militants.
Medical professionals say health services in the region have largely shut down, with mortality rates and vaccination programmes severely hit and pressure heaped on the skeleton staff that remain, according to AFP report…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Closure of Unity Colleges — Thousands of Students Face Uncertainty
Damaturu, Yola, Abuja — Thousands of Federal colleges’ students who have been asked to move from their locations in the North-East to other states have been left in the lurch because their parents have opposed the transfer, Daily Trust learnt at the weekend.
Five Unity Colleges have been shut, following the killing of at least 29 students at the Federal Government College Buni Yadi, Yobe State two weeks ago. The closed colleges are in the three states under a state of emergency — Borno, Yobe and Adamawa — because of a deadly insurgency…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sierra Leone: President Koroma Calls on Muslims to Sustain Religious Tolerance
President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma has called on the Ahmadiyya Mission to help sustain the worthy tradition of religious tolerance which Sierra Leone enjoys today.
“I am heartened by the presence of so many religious leaders here today. This is another affirmation of our country being one of the most religiously tolerant nations in the world. I call on all to sustain this worthy tradition,” President Koroma urged during the 53rd Jalsa Salana of the Ahmadiyya Mission in Sierra Leone on Friday 7th March in Bo City…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Immigrants Found Inside False-Bottom Car Trying to Enter Spain
Spain’s city enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla are targets of 80,000 illegal immigrants who are gathering in Morocco to try to enter Europe, according to the Spanish interior minister
Spanish border police have found two illegal immigrants hidden in the false bottom of a car in the latest desperate attempt to cross into Europe from Morocco. The two men needed medical treatment after being discovered squeezed into the tiny space beneath the boot of a car crossing from Morocco into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Spain to Give 500 Dollars to Immigrants to Return Home
Repeat of 2013 initiative
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 10 — Spain’s interior ministry will give 500 dollars to every undocumented immigrant that agrees to go back to their country of origin. The initiative, which was used last year for 246 immigrants, has received funding to continue in 2014. Some 400,000 euros have been allocated for the two-year period. Ministerial sources quoted by the media said that it is an attempt to stem the tide of undocumented immigration, which renders Spain vulnerable in its Moroccan enclaves Ceuta and Melilla.
The same sources said that the initiative is in line with similar programs run by countries such as Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and that it is being implemented in collaboration with Morocco. The sources claimed that giving immigrants 500 euros means making them better able to deal with life in their countries of origin, where pro capita income is very low.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Why Pro-Immigrant Activists Are Turning to Hunger Strikes
With immigration reform stalled in Congress, young activists are stepping up protests to dramatize the toll of deportation on families. But critics question whether the actual numbers fit the claims.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Women MP Quotas ‘Meant to Derail Election Reform’
Santanché says Letta loyalists taking revenge on Renzi
(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, March 10 — An MP from ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s party on Monday said her female peers demanding minimum quotas for women in Lower House were using the issue to derail Premier Matteo Renzi’s landmark election reform and take revenge on him for pushing his predecessor out of office. “It’s not a battle of the sexes. It’s to take revenge and make Renzi pay for his behavior regarding Enrico Letta,” Daniela Santanché told Italian daily La Repubblica. Santanché, known as Berlusconi’s ‘pythoness’ for her fiery defence of the former premier, leapt to the defence of Renzi in light of a deal he struck with Berlusconi earlier this year to reform Italy’s electoral process. That move, made while Renzi was still just mayor of Florence, was seen as pivotal in his rise to power and Letta’s coinciding decline, brought about in a party coup led by Renzi to strip him of the premiership. Santanché said that among the 90 signatories to appeal for a minimum quota for women in the House, “I don’t see any who are Renzi loyalists”. On Monday those same women wore white to the House in a sign of protest.
Santanché was dressed in pink.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Qaeda Unveils New Magazine Aimed at Western Jihadis
Al-Qaeda is starting an English language magazine as part of a fresh effort to recruit and inspire Western jihadis to launch attacks in their own countries, according to security analysts.
A video posted on YouTube uses the words of Malcolm X to justify violent struggle, before announcing the name of the magazine, Resurgence.
It appears to be modelled on Inspire, an online publication produced by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has carried messages from Osama bin Laden, bomb making directions and tactics for launching “lone wolf” attacks.
However, the new magazine appears to be the first English language magazine from the group’s core leadership and is advertised with a slick video from as-Sahab, its media production house.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cybernetic Paradise, Mind-Reading Technology and the Posthuman-Occult Dictatorship
The majority of the population in places like America and Europe live in something like a subtle trance state and they do not realize that they have now entered the world of the science fiction movie Minority Report. For decades numerous technologies have been employed that average Americans have no idea exist and if you told them, they would robotically say “conspiracy theory.”
For example, a San Diego-based company Emotient has developed a technology that will allow people to read other people’s emotions. The company developed a Sentiment Analysis prototype app for Google Glass which would allow people who put on the fashionable computerized headset to read the emotions of people around them. Political operatives, advertising people, and even clerks in stores could instantly know your reaction to just about anything. Just imagine walking into a store with the clerks wearing these headsets so they can in essence “read your thoughts” through “an aggregate emotional read-out.”
The wearer of Google Glass using this app is able to measure a full range of emotional states, including joy, surprise, sadness, fear, disgust, contempt, and anger, or even frustration and confusion…
In Part 2 of this series I will discuss the Fabian Socialists like Lord Bertrand Russell, who joined the Frankfurt School which advocated the application of mass social engineering. The Frankfurt School actually developed the theology and organizational structure behind the Seeker Friendly church movement within the Evangelical Church. The majority of Evangelical seminaries and churches in America have not received their theology or methodology from the Bible, but from the militantly anti-Christian social engineering of the Frankfurt School.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Co-pilot whacks pilot, turns plane & dives into the ocean, collects his 57 virgins. Once they recover the black box, there will be a new rule of flying: never put a Muslim crew in charge of a planeload of infidels because the lure of the 57 virgins is too strong.
Things work better when they are simplified. New rule for flying : No Moslems allowed in airports. That means ;
no Moslems allowed to fly, no Moslem pilots, cabin staff,
engineers, ground staff, aircraft controllers, toilet cleaners, taxi drivers, shop or restaurant owners,workers or maintenance people. And no Moslem converts should be included in this. Game over !!
Sounds fair and logical, the best way to achieve this is by excluding them from say a 100 mile radius of said airport!
I thought it was 72 virgins. Actually it was four and twenty and they came down from Inverness.
“Officer curled up into a ball . . .”
I note that the headline highlights the weakness of the officer and the strength of the crowd– by itself it’s an expression of terrorism.
The rhetoric of the story and the headline should focus on the barbarity and criminality of the mob, not the weakness of the officer. He is the aggrieved party here, he is the victim for whom justice must be found.
His family are his representatives.
The society is his home.
The journalism here is pro-terroristic, anti-Western. As a Westerner, I am outraged and disgusted.
Not 72 virgins but 1 virgin 72 years old.
Re: “20 Facts about the Great Retail Apocalypse” (first post)
The article is fine, and cites the growth of Amazon, but ends with a comment: “Banksters’ Planned Destruction of the Middle Class is Working”. I may be a Bear of Little Brain, JD, but I know a non sequitur when I see one.
Mark H it does not have to follow, and he never wrote QED either but he is correct! and he probably has the correct villains too!
The growth of Amazon may reduce retail jobs (are they middle class?), but makes more books more easily available to more people. If this is an attack on the said middle class, it’s a cunningly concealed one!
How does the greater availability of books an everything else Amazon sells compensate for the loss of jobs?
It doesn’t, of course, any more than the mass production of Model T Fords compensated for the loss of blacksmiths’ jobs. This doesn’t mean Henry Ford hated blacksmiths, or wanted to reduce the horse population, except insofar as it benefited his business.